From: Park, James R S (jrspar_at_essex.ac.uk)
Date: 2003-02-19 12:46:04
This is way off-topic, my apologies.
"I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for
bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am
I! For some time now I've been really p*ssed off with
Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the
street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health
food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure
Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so
far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been
round to his place a few times to see what he's up to,
but he's got everything well hidden. That's how
devious he is.
As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know
- from very goodsources - that he is, in reality, a
Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling
them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one
by one.
Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why
don't I go to the police? But that's simply
ridiculous. The police will say that they need
evidence of a crime with which to charge my
neighbours. They'll come up with endless red tape and
quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive
strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising
his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel
will be secretly murdering people. Since I'm the only
one in the street with a decent range of automatic
firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace.
But until recently that's been a little difficult.
Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that
all I need to do is run out of patience, and then I
can wade in and do whatever I want!
And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out
policy towards Iraq is the only way to bring about international peace
and security. The one certain way to stop Muslim fundamentalist suicide
bombers targeting the US or the UK is to bomb a few Muslim countries
that have never threatened us.
That's why I want to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and
kill his wife and children. Strike first! That'll
teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us in peace and
stop peering at me in that totally unacceptable way.
Mr Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know
before bombing Iraq is that Saddam is a really nasty
man and that he has weapons of mass destruction - even
if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as
much justification for killing Mr Johnson's wife and
children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq. Mr Bush's
long-term aim is to make the world a safer place by eliminating 'rogue
states' and terrorism'.
It's such a clever long-term aim because how can you
ever know when you've achieved it? How will Mr Bush
know when he's wiped out all terrorists? When every
single terrorist is dead? But then a terrorist is only
a terrorist once he's committed an act of terror.
What about would-be terrorists? These are the ones
you really want to eliminate, since most of the known
terrorists, being suicide bombers, have already
eliminated themselves.
Perhaps Mr Bush needs to wipe out everyone who could
possibly be a future terrorist? Maybe he can't be
sure he's achieved his objective until every Muslim fundamentalist is
dead? But then some moderate Muslims might convert to fundamentalism.
Maybe the only really safe thing to do would be for Mr Bush to
eliminate all Muslims?
It's the same in my street. Mr Johnson and Mr Patel
are just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of
other people in the street who I don't like and who -
quite frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be
really safe until I've wiped them all out. My wife
says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm
simply using the same logic as the President of the
United States. That shuts her up.
Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's
a good enough reason for the President, it's good
enough for me. I'm going to give the whole street two
weeks - no, 10 days - to come out in the open and hand
over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers,
galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist
masterminds, and if they don't hand them over nicely
and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the entire
street to kingdom come.
It's just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing
- and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy
will destroy only one street.
Terry Jones (ex-Monty Python)
=====
http://www.dustygroove.com/
http://www.xlrecordings.com/mp3/other/lbplayer/
http://www.workingabroad.com/
http://www.dalailama.com/html/peace_nonviolence.html
http://www.massiveattack.com
http://www.eastcoastsurf.com/misc/reefcomp/
http://www.greenpeace.com
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